


Comic Book Life

by Redrikki



Category: Black Lightning (TV)
Genre: Canon Gay Relationship, F/F, Lesbian Character of Color, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 04:59:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17842919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: Comic book Thunder's boyfriend knew what his woman did, so why couldn't Anissa tell her girlfriend?





	Comic Book Life

**Author's Note:**

> Doubles for Ladies Bingo prompt "lovers" and Gen Bingo prompt "secret identity."

Comic book Thunder was straight because of course she was. The sad thing was, Anissa had actually been enjoying it before the author decided to shove their heteronormativity down her throat. The art was good, like, photorealistic good and not just some perv’s sick fantasy of what a woman’s body should look like. And the plot, taking out a human trafficking ring, was exactly the sort of thing Anissa could see herself doing. Then Thunder went home from a long day of ass kicking to her man’s loving arms and nope. Done. He didn’t even have a face, presumably so readers could imagine they were the ones making out with a superhero. Anissa tossed the comic on the coffee table with a noise of disgust.

“What’s the matter?” asked Grace, looking up from where she was reading, curled up at Anissa’s side. 

“The straights are at it again.” Anissa nudged the offending comic with her foot.

Grace shrugged, clearly not seeing the problem. “What do you expect? Do you even know how many gay comics book characters there are? Pretty sure there’s, like, two and they’re all just pretty white boys.”

“Yeah, except Thunder is a real person.” A real _gay_ person who really wasn’t interested in seeing herself as some straight dude’s fantasy. “They can’t just give her a boyfriend.”

“Wow.” Grace stared at her with wide eyes.“This is really upsetting you.” She set her book down slowly. “You are weirdly invested in Thunder being gay. Do you have a crush? Should I be worried?” she teased, her lips twitching with amusement.

“What?! No, I—” Anissa thumped her head on the back of the couch with a groan of frustration. 

Why couldn’t she just say it? _I’m Thunder_. It shouldn’t be too hard. The mechanics of it were simple, but even after these months together, Anissa couldn’t bring herself to tell her girlfriend. The problem wasn’t that she didn’t trust Grace; it was that Grace was her safe place. She loved being Thunder, but it was a lot. It was crisis after crisis with family drama and being shot at. Back when Anissa first started down this road, her mother had warned her that being a superhero would consume her life and, somedays, it felt like she was right. The longer Anissa kept her secret, the longer they could keep being two ordinary girls in love. Her parents had shown her first hand what super heroics could do to a relationship. Putting Grace through that was the last thing she wanted. 

“I guess I just got so caught up in the idea of Thunder as representation, I forgot that she wasn’t supposed to represent _me_.” Anissa shook her head. “For once, I’d just really like to see myself in something I’m reading, you know?”

It wasn’t technically a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth either. That was becoming increasingly true of a lot of things in their relationship, but it beat the alternative.

Grace nodded. It wasn’t like there were a lot of bisexual Asian characters out there either. “I guess we’ll just have to be the change we want to see. I know I would make one hot superhero.”

“The hottest,” Anissa agreed and pulled her down for a kiss which quickly became much more.

The truth was going to come out someday, probably at the worst possible moment when she’d been shot or something. She tried not to think about it as Grace straddled her, her fingers tangling in Anissa’s hair. Comic book Thunder’s boyfriend clearly knew what was up, but Anissa couldn’t take that risk. She shucked off Grace’s shirt and tossed it over the comic. Right now, she wasn’t a superhero. She was just a girl in love, and she was going to live in the moment for as long as it lasted.


End file.
